Scott raised an interesting question last week with his post about stage directions. At risk of stirring up those now quiet waters, I offer a broader suggestion: prepare the reader for the conventions of your script.
The generally accepted convention of stage directions for plays is that they describe what can be seen by an audience on stage. Whether or not that is "right," that's the trend. When a writer bucks a trend, he or she runs the risk of appearing that they don't know their craft.
In many plays I receive, the title page or the cover letter explains some of the text conventions: "\" for overlapping dialog, special formatting for projected text, italics for text translated into another language. The list goes on.
In the same spirit, a playwright might choose to include a note that said something to the effect of "This script employs literary stage directions which are intended to create an image for the reader. They are not intended to be instructions for directors or actors."
This sort of context helps not only with text conventions, but with the intentions of the script. I've read plays that are either spot on subtle satires, or pale imitations of classic work. A note about the author's intentions in that cover letter would help me figure out which. I've read scripts that are the result of some experimental process - but without any context for what that process is. As a result, I'm unable to properly read the text.
When reading 10 to 15 scripts a week, I simply don't have the time to fully explore a script as one would in preparation for production. So any help the author can give in familiarizing me quickly with his or her conventions and intentions will help me read the script in the appropriate context.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Use that Cover for Context
Thursday, February 21, 2008
No such thing as zero budget
First off, thanks to Scott Barsotti for breathing some life into this lapsed blog.
ZERO BUDGET?
A couple of days ago I got an email about Collaboraction's Studio Series project. That series has a lofty goal: creating art not tied to commercial considerations. One line in the call for particpants stuck out to me, however:
"This is a quarterly, process driven-program that lives and breathes in our studio, performs for one weekend, and operates with a $0 budget." (emphasis mine)
Now, I'm not criticising Collaboraction. They've been completely upfront about the goals, process and compensation. If you don't want to play by those rules, you just don't audition.
But it did get me thinking about the cost of making theater. And while that phrase "$0 budget" is true in the sense that there's no money exchanging hands, its not true in the sense that there is no cost.
Even if something is donated, is has a value that one could account for in a budget. Even if people are not paid, their time and energy certainly has a value.
So it strikes me that there are two kinds of budgets possible for any given production - one in which you account for cash flow. And another in which you attempt to account for donated time, materials, and space. Would publishing such "total picture" budgets help people quanitify the true cost of making a piece of theater?
Volunteer time and unpaid/underpaid time are a kind of hidden cost of making theater. And anytime there is a hidden cost, it seems to me that someone in the process has a vested interest in keep that cost hidden. Who benefits from the uncounted costs of production? Is this a product of a broken production model, or is it the neccesary cost of making an art in a form that resists commodification?
